Standardized optical disk storage formats have recently evolved from Digital Versatile Disk (DVD) to Blu-ray. A Blu-ray disk is read using a blue laser having a wavelength of 405 nanometers, significantly shorter than the 650 nanometer red laser used to read DVDs. Information can therefore be stored at a much higher density on Blu-ray disks. For example, a single layer Blu-ray disk can store about 25 Gigabytes (GB) of data, compared to about 5 GB for a DVD. Higher storage densities can be achieved by configuring the optical disk to include multiple storage layers, as is well known.
It is also known to store three-dimensional (3D) image information for movies or other types of content on Blu-ray disks and other optical disks. A 3D optical disk playback device can read such information from the optical disk and provide a corresponding 3D image signal output for presentation on a television or other display device, thereby providing a 3D viewing experience to its users. Unfortunately, in order to obtain this 3D viewing experience, a given user typically must not only purchase both a 3D optical disk playback device and other associated equipment such as a 3D television, but that user must also buy 3D optical disks that store 3D image information, even though he or she may already have exactly the same movies or other content stored in two-dimensional (2D) image format on 2D optical disks. This is because existing optical disk playback devices are generally unable to generate 3D image signals solely from the stored 2D image information on a 2D optical disk.
Accordingly, a need exists for an optical playback device that can generate a 3D image signal from 2D image information stored on an optical disk, without requiring any change to the optical disk itself or to the information stored on that optical disk, so as to thereby save users the expense of upgrading their existing 2D content libraries.